There was more solid ground than mere confidence in his destiny behind Shelby's bold front. The earliest mail delivery had shed a glimmer of hope in the shape of a midnight note from Mrs. Hilliard. He did not require her reminder that the voting strength of Little Poland was no longer to be counted in his column--he had thought and fought that out in the small hours; but he did need and pounced upon the statement that Little Poland's master would be out of town the greater part of election day. The scrawl ended with an appointment for a clandestine meeting at eleven o'clock, toward which he now bent his steps on leaving Ruth. Mrs. Hilliard had named a cemetery on the immediate outskirts as the rendezvous--a choice on whose evil omen Shelby wasted no thought. In the heyday of their flirtation he and Mrs. Hilliard had made frequent use of it as a Platonic trysting-place, and he climbed the silent paths toward the summit of the mount, as it was styled in that level land, with no sentiment save approval of her wisdom in seizing upon the one spot in all New Babylon whose privacy was certain. Mrs. Hilliard, shivering in the lee of a pretentious granite shaft which bore her family name, was more susceptible. "Bleak--desolate," she chattered. "What an end for our Fools' Paradise. But where else could we escape their prying eyes?" "You've heard what they're saying?" She nodded listlessly. "Who has not heard?" As they huddled in the shelter of the monument she brooded over the plain below wherein the canal, livid, yet unfrozen still, half girdled the town in a serpentine fold. Each chimney curled a light spiral into the nipping air. "Under every one a wagging tongue," she said. "It's known to every soul except one." "You mean he's still in the dark?" "He can't know yet. He took an early train to Centreport. It's some quarry business that could not wait. I remembered it last night--after--after you had gone; so I wrote. It was past two o'clock before I dared steal out to post the letter." Shelby shrugged into the collar of his ulster. "I don't deserve all this," he muttered. "Don't say that. You've done things, too. You've stood for--things; something to pin faith to. You are--" "I'm your good friend--remember that." "Friend!" He drew her farther into shelter, and tucked her furs about her throat. "Now concentrate your mind," he enjoined, "and tell me exactly the lay of the land. Did he communicate with the foreman at the quarry before he left?" "Yes. I overheard him telephone Kiska before breakfast. He said he'd return at half-past three. There's no train to-day from Centreport till then." "And there is no other till the polls close. He said nothing, then, about voting the hands before afternoon?" "They're at work this morning." "On election day! You're sure?"